Unusual Stuff

The writing has been on the wall for some time.  Blockbuster Video, which once boasted something like 9000 video stores in the United States alone, has been limping along for latter half of the 2000’s, with a bankruptcy filing in 2010 and the elimination of all but 300 stores over time.  Now those last 300 […]

Legal proceedings can get quite tricky if you’re not a lawyer or judge or someone educated in the legal profession.  There are a lot of specialized documents, briefs to be submitted, rules and regulations, and even the way you address the other participants in the court case are governed by a set of complex rules […]

For years, the restriction on the use of electronic devices on airplanes has been one of the most hotly-debated, and possibly dumbest, restrictions ever put into place by the Federal Aviation Administration.  Perhaps long ago, before the rise of shielded electronics, it made sense to ban all electronic devices from use during plane flights, but […]

Periodically, you hear interesting stories about people who find themselves getting kicked off of plane flights for spurious reasons.  From threatening tattoos to talking on the phone to Words With Friends, it seems like any number of reasons can cause a passenger to be removed from a plane, but most of these events happen on the […]

It’s only been a couple of weeks since Focus and Universal announced that Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam were going to take the lead roles in the film version of the 50 Shades trilogy.  Then, the fans got involved.  The outrage was palpable, and poor Charlie Hunnam took the bulk of the fan annoyance because […]

President Barack Obama’s health care reform project has attracted a lot of attention.  Some people love it, some people hate it, the websites weren’t designed for the level of interest the project has attracted, and I’m sure most people don’t actually understand what it is, what it means, what it does, who is going to […]

Every year, Jann Wenner and a secret cabal of music journalists and other Rolling Stone illuminati gather together, squint at dusty manuscripts (or Wikipedia them), figure out who released what single when, and if a band has been active or was active 25 years ago, they may find themselves on a list of carefully-selected musical […]

When it comes to natural beauty, Utah is one of the top places in the United States.  Unfortunately, like all national parks, Utah’s national parks are closed up tight thanks to the government shut down.  Employees aren’t getting paid, and as such, enjoying the beauty of nature is right out.  That’s bad news for the […]

If all you know of Tom Clancy is submarines, then you should probably revisit his work.  The author, who practically invented the technothriller genre, was definitely a talent at his craft.  Nobody put in that much research, and nobody worked harder to get all the little details right when it comes to the military fiction […]

Earlier this month, Apple set the tech world abuzz with the introduction of the iPhone 5s. It isn’t just the new gold color that’s receiving a lot of attention, but the new “Touch ID” system installed on the phone. Predictably, many in the community have taken the security measures to task and have set about […]

In an operation that would make Indiana Jones and Samuel L. Jackson cringe, authorities in Shirley, New York have seized 850 snakes from the home of an animal control officer. Among the hoard were two 6-foot Burmese pythons, which are illegal in the state. Authorities spotted the reptiles in the garage of Richard Parrinello, an […]

Lots of people have a vested interest in finding out whether or not we are alone in the universe.  The search for extraterrestrial life takes on many forms and has many funding sources, from SETI’s insistence that we can find alien life in 25 years and the Vatican’s active search for alien life forms.  As […]

A few short years after the first Middle Eastern beauty queen hit American consciousness in the form of Rima Fakih, now we’ve broken another barrier.  It’s not the gender barrier, but another background-based barrier.  The first Indian-American to ever win Miss America was crowned last night.  Miss America for 2014 will be the lovely and […]

The Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl glory is apparently going to be very short-lived this season.  The team has eight new starters on defense, and if they continue to play like they did last night, the team is in for a long season on what has been traditionally been their strongest side of the ball.  Peyton […]

Ladies, start your salivating!  The lead roles have been cast in the eagerly-awaited movie version of Fifty Shades of Gray.  As it turns out, they went in a completely different direction for both roles than what has been hinted at–or just loudly yelled about–by fans.  Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson will be taking on the […]